I consider this a breakthrough in its own right! It is a recognition of a whole new facet of our problem with a lot of implications. Of course we talked about a lot of this a couple o years ago but who is surprised at that

Let's start with the recognition of the importance of the sole of the foot as a sensor. I have long noticed that I do much better bare foot than with shoes or even socks. Here is a reasonable hypothesis.

Have you ever noticed that you can dance across a room when you can't walk across it? Different circuitry! The same circuits that music activates and allows Bob and I to trip the light fantastic

<quote>
“The brain is sensitive to the neuroposture being off by as little as one millimeter from the line of gravity.” “If the posture of the mandible is off, the brain is constantly flooded with information and uses a lot of its available energy dealing with the information.” He then explained in detail how the brain of a patient with PD becomes unable to cope with this flood of information, and unable to control the muscles of the body. <end quote>

We've talked of problems of neural bandwidth and our freezing when it gets overloaded. This is the first plausible explanation that I have seen for it.

<quote>
He further added, “The brain activates survival mechanisms thinking the body is ready to fall over. The brain’s stress depletes dopamine and other hormones known to be associated with Parkinson’s disease.” <end quote>

The two arms of PD's awful embrace are the inflammation of the immune system and the stress hormones of the endocrine system. You have noticed that the stress isn't a big problem in the early years but becomes more and more so as time goes on. The assumption is that we have a general breakdown so sure, we have trouble standing up.

Well, excuse my Fench, but, "Le Boule Puppies!" If our brain is increasingly in a panic as it struggles to cope with the failing of its sensory feedback systems, that represents a major chronic stressor going every moment that we are on our feet and it is flooding our systems with cortisol, adrenaline, aldosterone, and lord only knows what else. This is a deadly brew.

I nominate these fellows for the "Big Piece of the Puzzle Prize".

All joking aside for a moment, if this is born out in the real world, IMHO this is a big as Ldopa 40 years ago.